The Culture of College Mental Health: Narratives of Stress, Value, and Belonging Open Access
Wilson, Gracie (Spring 2023)
Abstract
College students across recent decades seem to be presenting with more severe mental health needs and universities struggle to meet rising demands for mental health services. Called a “crisis in college mental health,” these trends, and the clinical framings and national surveys through which they become known, share a focus on the individual as “getting sicker.” Less explored is how the symptoms this crisis describes are embedded in social and cultural meanings, or how student culture structures students’ experiences of their mental health. This thesis presents an ethnographic study of college student mental health and social and academic life at Oxford College, one of Emory University’s liberal arts colleges. I present how student mental health comes to be defined through student culture, narratives of high achievement, and notions of productivity to structure students' experience of belonging. Findings consider how college mental health represents social and cultural phenomena related to systems of value, identity, and adequacy, and how a student-centered lens can inform policies and practices of college mental health.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Student Culture
Chapter 2: Student Stress
Chapter 3: Belonging and Mental Health
Conclusion
Bibliography
About this Honors Thesis
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